Читать книгу The Journal of Antonia Montoya - Rick Collignon - Страница 7

JOSÉ MONTOYA’S MOTHER AND FATHER were killed early one warm August morning by a cow.

José’s father had once warned his son, when they were alone together in their trailer, that if he ever saw an owl he should watch out. José Sr. had drunk a few beers and was watching nothing on the television when he suddenly turned and told his son that owls were not birds, they were witches in disguise. They had no purpose but to bring news of death, his father had said, and if José were to see one around the house, he was to get the .22 from under the bed and kill the sonofabitch. José hadn’t known what to say to his father. He had looked at him until his father turned away, took another drink from his beer, and said, “I tell you, hijo, those owls are something.”

In his seven years José couldn’t recall ever having seen an owl, and he knew that he hadn’t seen one on the morning his mother and father died. The morning seemed to be just the beginning of another day and then, suddenly, without a cloud in the sky or the soft whisper of an owl’s wing, it went bad. It went bad like a bloody egg his mother would sometimes crack open.

José’s Tío Flavio drove his truck slowly through Guadalupe and took the dirt drive that angled sharply up the hill just past Felix’s Café. He could see his brother’s trailer at the top of the hill. The curtains were drawn over the windows and the front door was closed, even on such a warm morning. To Flavio, who liked trees and running water and the sound of things, the trailer, sitting on its patch of barren earth and surrounded by stunted sagebrush and the twisted shells of José’s abandoned vehicles, looked like something that would be left after the end of the world.

Ray Pacheco, the Guadalupe police officer, had called Flavio with the bad news that his brother and his brother’s wife, Loretta, were dead because of a cow. It had been over very quickly and no one had suffered, not even the stupid animal. The first thing to come into Flavio’s head was, Why this morning? I was going to irrigate this morning. He had hung up the phone and said to his wife, “José and Loretta are dead. Call Ramona. I’m going to get little José.”

He parked his truck in front of the trailer and stayed sitting in the cab. He thought it was too bad he had quit smoking—this would be a good time for a cigarette. He had quit because his wife, in her quiet way, had never approved of his ruining his health, but now, he thought, a cow had killed his brother, and after he got José from the trailer, he would go to Tito’s bar and buy a carton of the cigarettes without filters.

Flavio walked up the front stoop to the trailer door. He swung the door open and then waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the shadows inside. He could hear the low sound of the television, and gradually he made out José sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, staring at him. Flavio had never been close to his brother’s son. He did not know why this was so, as little José was his only nephew, but whenever they were in each other’s presence, Flavio would feel his thoughts slip from him, and when he did speak, the words sounded harsh and empty, even to himself. Flavio looked at his nephew for a few seconds and then said, “José.”

José was still in his pajamas, and Flavio thought that his nephew must have just come from bed. “José,” he said again, “go put on your clothes.”

José stood up slowly and looked at his uncle. “Why, Tío?” he asked.

“Because your mother and your father were in a bad accident. We’re going to my house.”

“Was it a car accident?”

“Yes,” Flavio said. “Now don’t ask me no more. Go get your clothes and we’ll go.”

José Sr. and Loretta Montoya drove to Las Sombras every Saturday morning. It was one of the things, José thought, that he did for his wife. He would get up early with Loretta, and with a splitting headache from too much beer the night before and a cigarette stuck in his mouth that tasted like dirt, he would climb into their car and drive the thirty miles south from Guadalupe to Las Sombras so Loretta could shop. She would hold her husband’s hand tightly and drag him from shop to shop, tormenting him. But she never bought a thing, only walked and looked and sometimes touched the garments in the shops. Loretta had decided to make these trips each Saturday morning when, early in her marriage, she noticed that every Friday night José would get staggering drunk with his cabrónes and come home at all hours. On those nights, he would carry to her bed the odor of tobacco and beer and sweat that made Loretta think of car engines. Loretta shopped every Saturday morning for revenge.

On this particular Saturday morning Loretta had yelled at her son just before she and José Sr. had driven off. She seldom raised her voice to little José, but on this morning something had risen in her like a black bubble, and she had spit it out at her son. She’d stood in the doorway dressed in her tight blue jeans and fluffed white blouse with pictures on it of what she thought were armadillos but were actually turtles and had stared at José sitting in front of the television, a piece of uneaten toast beside him on the carpet. She had yelled his name so loudly that he started and looked at her wide-eyed. She didn’t say anything else but turned and stomped down the steps to join her husband in the car. When José Sr. saw the expression on her face, he turned the radio off, tossed his cigarette out the window, and thought that his life might actually get worse.

A few miles south of Guadalupe, just as the highway topped a hill and began to fall back down sharply, Loretta began to cry. José, who was struggling to light another cigarette with a match that would not stay steady in his hand, reached over and touched her knee. His cigarette fell from his mouth to the floor of the car, and he grunted and bent over to look for it. Loretta, her eyes damp and now as bloodshot as her husband’s, saw a large animal standing in the middle of the highway. Loretta could see the jaws of the animal moving back and forth calmly, and even as she called José’s name, she saw that the animal was a large cow and that it had a look almost of curiosity in its eyes. By the time José straightened up, the front of the car had already struck the cow, knocking it off its four legs and rolling it through the windshield. José thought something had fallen from the sky. He saw the color black. He could smell the odor of grass.